You may or may not have heard about the recent woes about further budget cuts to higher education in the state of Utah. Encouraging equity funding in regards to higher education may help soften the blow made to UVU.
Recently, Richard Portwood, UVUSA Executive Vice President, and Christina Lowe, Chief Justice on UVUSA, had the opportunity to speak in behalf of the students to the Appropriations Sub-Committee for Higher Ed. Of the many topics discussed by each institution, there was one main theme – institutions feel that they are not receiving the funding they need to continue at the rate they are growing.
Over the past two years UVU has increased its size by about 5,000 students – a 20% increase. It is interesting to learn of the variety of reasons students choose to attend UVU. Whether it is the small class sizes, the beautiful area in which our institution resides, the programs, or the fact that it is affordable; many students in the state of Utah are choosing UVU as their university to educate them.
So what is the problem? You may ask. And to that I can answer in one word my friends—funding. UVU students have the least amount of space per student in the state, 121 sq. ft. to be exact. That is compared to a student at Weber State who has 195.8 sq. ft., a student attending SUU who has 236.9 sq. ft., and a student at Dixie who has 239.4 sq. ft.
What could this lack of funding, thus indirectly a lack of space, possibly be attributed to? Student Life and Leadership Director Phil Clegg said, “UVU continued to grow at a time when the state of Utah didn’t have the luxury of being generous with tax dollars, nor does it now.”
It seems apparent then, that the time for enrollments to increase by 20% also missed the mark on great timing. Others have argued that in the past the state legislature made it clear that they would not be able to provide the sufficient funds for UVU to continue to grow. Consequentially, UVU still chose to add the much-needed programs at the time and therefore, attracted more students and faculty with very little state money. This decision may or may not be the cause for students paying 54% of the overall cost it requires to attend UVU and the state 46%.
Furthermore, there are those who would also claim that the university’s decision to add programs without sufficient state funding has caused the problem with space and that now the university should deal with the repercussions. Whatever one attributes the problem to, UVU has a major spatial problem and it is not going away any time soon.
Equity funding is the idea that the state would pay the same percentage of each student’s overall cost to attend an institution of higher ed. Therefore, tuition would differ according to the student’s choice of institution, but the state would pay the same percentage of one’s overall cost.
This could help UVU, seeing as it is the second largest public university in the state. Equity funding could help our spatial problem and could help UVU receive the funding it needs to continue to grow.
Whether UVU chose to continue to add programs when state funding was lacking seems to become increasingly irrelevant when one looks at the fact that no one could have predicted the growth that has come to UVU and its programs. Even if one claims that UVU put itself in this predicament, no one can deny that an unbelievable amount of students have chosen it to be their university and no one could have known this type of growth would come. You are the judge, would equity funding solve our problems and would it be fair?
What can we, as students, do about it? There are a couple things. First of all, go onto Utah.gov and find out what voting district you live in. By doing this you can find out who your legislators are.
The next step is to look at their profile and see what their opinions towards higher education have been in the past.
Next, contact them and tell them you are a concerned student attending UVU and that you believe equity funding would be a great solution. Ask them, if you cannot find it on their website, what they think the pros and cons are regarding equity funding. You could ask your legislator what they think about it and find out why equity funding is not in place for students participating in higher education in the state of Utah.
Secondly, if you are interested in helping as a student representative to push for equity funding please contact Christina Lowe at christinal@uvu.edu.
